


Uneasy Like Sunday Morning

by RiseHigh



Series: The Reluctant Housemates [4]
Category: Class (TV 2016)
Genre: Canon Compliant, M/M, Per usual more about Quill than anyone else, Reluctant Housemates, Unconventional Families
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-09
Updated: 2016-11-11
Packaged: 2018-08-30 02:49:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 3,366
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8515639
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RiseHigh/pseuds/RiseHigh
Summary: In which it's the second full day of them living together and Matteusz is observant, Quill is bitter, and Charlie is as oblivious as ever.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I'm rubbish at titles guys. Absolute rubbish. And this doesn't really *need* to be multiple chapters, but I flip POVs between Matteusz/Quill and it's soothing on my mild OCD to have them split.

“You all right?” Charlie mumbled; his posh accent thick with sleep.

“Needed a drink of water.” Matteusz could tell Charlie was barely awake and about to fall back to sleep. He should let him sleep, but the observation had surprised him so the words tumbled out, “Miss Quill was awake.”

Charlie started to sit up—his tiredness seemingly vanished. “Did she say something to you?”

“No,” Matteusz said quickly, pulling him back down. “Her light was on. There was an odd noise.”

Charlie gave him a horrified look. “Noise?”

“Not that,” he dismissed quickly. “More like a ‘thwap.’”

Charlie smirked at his mimicking of the sound before settling back against the pillow. “Probably her punching bag.”

“Does she always punch in the middle of the night?”

“I don’t know what she does, but I suspect she has a picture of me on the bag.” 

“Does she sleep?”

“She knows she has to.”

They fell silent for a moment. A part of Matteusz knew he should drop it—things were, for lack of a better word, complicated between those two—but it was 3:00am on a Sunday morning and Miss Quill attacking a punching bag. He was surprised Charlie wasn’t at least curious about what prompted this. “That thing Friday night. It was her sister.”

“It was an alien,” Charlie said dismissively. “She knew the entire time it wasn’t her sister.”

“But their bond must have been strong.”

“Not strong enough from to stop her from kicking it in the face.” He paused a moment before adding, “Or having me stab it with the screwdriver.”

“Do you think she’s upset?”

“She’s always upset. She’ll be fine.” He pulled Matteusz closer. “Go back to sleep.”


	2. Chapter 2

Quill turned another page in her book and reached for her coffee mug. It was empty. Damn. Setting the book aside, she headed into the kitchen to refill it. Cupping the mug in her hand, she looked out the window and watched a human attempt to deal with a child throwing toys out of a pushchair. Each time the child threw the toy, the parent handed it back, and the child threw it again. The cycle repeated until they were out of sight. These parents were so indulgent—no wonder her students thought the world revolved around them.

Turning around, she stepped into the corridor and looked up the darkened stairs. No lights and no sounds. They were still sleeping. Of course. She wanted to leave, so naturally they would spend the morning sleeping in. 

“Story of my life,” she muttered to herself as she walked back towards the lounge. She never used to talk to herself. Absently, she wondered if this was a human thing or because she was so damn alone.

The arn wouldn’t actually stop her from walking at the door since the little prince was not in any danger. Quill was fairly certain that he would spend the day cuddling with his boyfriend or doing whatever it was those two did when they thought she wasn’t paying attention. Not that she cared—she had explicitly told them as much—yet his highness still felt the need to sneak around like some human teenager. The upside was that this meant she saw less of him. When he was acting like an insipid human, his life was not in danger and she could ignore him.

This was likely going to be an insipid human day for him, but she couldn’t be certain, which meant the arn couldn’t be certain. If she went too long without knowing where the prince was or what he was doing, it would helpfully remind her that she needed to check in on him. She glanced at the clock and sighed. Maybe she should get on with her day and accept the fact she’d spend the morning with a prickling headache. 

Picking up the list she had made the night before, Quill counted the number of shops. There were five, so she would need to deal with at least five humans—more if a shop associate offered her help finding what she needed. Just the thought of that made her head hurt. She would wait. She didn’t need two headaches. So she sat there waiting for the prince to come out of his bedroom, because the world wasn’t ending so she was forbidden from intruding. 

It was a stupid rule. 

They were all stupid rules (well, except for the one about caramel), but this one was especially stupid since the little prince knew she had no interest in them. Although, to be fair, she _might_ have interrupted just for her own amusement if she was truly bored. Maybe she could text him—tell him that she was going out and that he was to inform her if he planned to do anything dangerous. Quill typed out the message, but when she moved to hit send, she felt a shooting pain in her head. 

“Gods,” she gasped while dropping the phone on the sofa cushion. “You really need to calibrate yourself to this species. These humans text constantly. It’s hardly intrusive.” 

She paused when she realized what she was doing. 

“And now, I’m talking to the arn,” she muttered as she deleted the message. "Great.”

Maybe Katniss and her revolution could distract her. Five chapters later, the revolution had progressed from District 13 to the Capital but Katniss was still letting her feelings for those boys interfere with her mission. It was nonsense. Thankfully, Quill finally heard movement upstairs. Leaving the book and taking her list and phone, she headed up the stairs and waited outside the closed bathroom door.

The door opened and Charlie jumped upon seeing her. “What? Why are you lurking in the corridor?”

“What are your plans for the day?”

“We don’t have any.”

“So you’ll be staying around the house?”

“Most likely.”

“Text me if those plans change.”

Quill turned and headed back down the stairs. “Where are you going?” he called after her.

“Not your concern.”

“But you asked me.”

Slipping on her coat, she glanced back up at him. “Only because I must.” She turned back to the door. “My plans are immaterial to your life.” 

“But…”

Without turning back, Quill held up her phone. “Call if you’re in mortal peril.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The "I told her not to intrude unless the world was ending" line irks me to no end.


	3. Chapter 3

“She’s almost finished Mockingjay.”

“What?”

Matteusz held up the book. “Third book in the Hunger Games series.”

“Hunger Games?” Charlie questioned as took the book and flipped it to the back. “Is it about food?”

“Only allegorically. But that’s not…”

Charlie cut him off. “What is a ‘Quarter Quell’?” he read from the back of the book.

“It’s this…” Matteusz searched for words that would succinctly answer the question without leading to more follow-up question. “It’s a battle where children are forced fight to the death as punishment for prior generations’ rebellion.”

“That’s barbaric.” Charlie set the book back down and smirked to himself. “No wonder she’s reading it. I bet she’d like to do that in her physics lessons if she could.” Charlie chuckled at his statement and Matteusz gave him a half smile in response. “Why are you so interested in what she reads?”

“It’s not so much as how much. She was reading the first book the night of the La… Lak…” he trailed off. Memorizing the names of the various aliens invading their lives was not his priority. He was more focused on learning and remembering what Charlie told him about Rhodia. 

“The Lankin,” Charlie supplied.

“She wasn’t very far in the second book last night,” Matteusz remembered. He and Charlie had gone out to grab something for dinner and when they returned, she had been in the lounge with the book. After a few minutes of them talking, she had sighed dramatically, gotten up, and headed to her bedroom—leaving the book, but not her coffee. “Now she’s nearly done with the third book.”

“So?”

He flicked the scrap of paper that was functioning as a bookmark. “They are long books.”

“She’s a fast reader.”

“It would still take time. Miss Quill would have had to read them most of the night.”

“Are you back to her not sleeping?” 

“It is not normal.”

“She isn’t normal," Charlie said dismissively and Matteusz shot him a judgmental look. Charlie sighed and continued, "Look, I’ll get her some chocolate. That always seems to improve her mood.”

“You—we—could try talking to her.”

“She doesn’t like talking to me,” Charlie said with a shake of his head. “Chocolate is easier.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I should probably write one of these from Charlie's POV because sometimes I feel like I'm being unfair to him, but he is so clueless and willfully blind about what he (and the arn) is doing to her and the possibility that she has feelings. I don't think he would be uncaring if Quill actually told him, but there's no way in hell she would have a heart to heart to him, so he just assumes she has no feelings.


	4. Chapter 4

Rain. Quill hated rain. Errands were bad enough, but when rain was added to the mix—which happened far too often here—she hated them even more. At least, she had found enough tech that should allow her to fix her gun and, the prince had texted that he and Matteusz had gone out, so she was looking forward to an afternoon of peace and quiet. Leaving her umbrella at the door, she walked inside and was disappointed to find his royal pain in the arse at the kitchen table.

“You’re supposed to be out.”

“It started raining, so we came back. We have homework to finish anyway,” he explained as she carried the bags into the kitchen. “We picked up some chocolate for you.” He got up from his seat and set the candy bar on the counter. Despite her clear disinterest, he kept chattering away at her. “What’s all that?”

“Groceries.”

“That can’t all be groceries.”

He was suspicious. Great. “I now have another mouth to feed, remember?”

“You don’t cook or feed us.”

He was so damn literal. “It’s an expression,” she explained tiredly. “You really need to work on your earth idioms. It means I must provide—and pay for—all the food.”

“But this isn’t all food.” He reached for one of the bags, but she snatched it away. “What is it?” She said nothing. “Answer me.”

Quill wanted to lie. Tell him it was something like lingerie that would leave him suitably horrified—since he was weirdly prudish at the thought of her being anything more than his obedient slave—but of course she couldn’t. 

“It’s not your concern.” 

She immediately felt an numbing tingle in her head. It wasn’t painful, because technically what she said wasn’t a lie. Quill firmly believed it was none of his business, but the arn disagreed and felt the need to remind her that she was skating on thin ice. Apparently, her efforts to use every idiom to annoy him had caused her to start thinking in terms of them.

“Give it to me.” 

With a frustrated sigh, Quill set the bag down on the counter and pushed it towards him roughly. She should have ignored the groceries and brought the bag straight up to her bedroom. Then the little prince wouldn’t be sifting through—no, inspecting—her purchases. Turning away from him, and hoping to appear casual, she started putting the actual groceries away.

“Why do you have all this?”

“A project.”

“What kind of project?”

He clearly was not going to let up on his little interrogation. She needed to get him off track lest he end up ordering her to explain her plans to repair her gun, which was more than likely to lead to an order not to do it. 

“A hobby,” she said casually.

“You have a hobby?”

“Yes, you have your hobbies, I have mine.”

“I don’t have a hobby.”

“What do you call Matteusz?”

“He’s not a hobby.”

Good. The prince was defensive and starting to get annoyed. Quill looked around the kitchen and towards the lounge. “Where is your human?” she asked.

“He’s not my human.” He let go of the bag and crossed his arms. Her plan was working, he was clearly annoyed. “Matteusz is my boyfriend.”

“Your _human boyfriend_ ,” she corrected. She just had to push him a little further. “Is he hiding from me?”

“He went up to shower.”

“Oh, I had hoped he was afraid of me,” she said with a fake pout. “I’ll just have to work harder.”

“You are not to scare Matteusz.”

Quill should have seen this coming—dodging one order from the little prince would only lead to a different one. She should be pleased. He had moved on from her purchases, but it didn’t feel like a victory. There was no escaping him—he and his orders were always there. 

“I can’t control your human’s reactions,” she shot back before turning to put the last of the groceries away. 

“You can control your actions.”

“As can you,” she muttered to herself without bothering to look at him.

“What?”

“Nothing, Prince.” She slammed the cabinet closed and spun around. “What else can I do for your highness?”

“Are you sleeping?”

He was asking about her sleep again? Of course he was. Why would he acknowledge the fact he had absolute control over her when he could lecture her on her sleep patterns? 

“This again?”

“You need to sleep,” he said calmly in that superior tone he always took when he knew best.

“I sleep, and I even use your damn lavender oil.” 

She actually didn’t mind the lavender oil. She even liked it—not that she would tell him—but lavender oil wasn’t a magic potion capable of quieting all her thoughts of what she had lost and could never regain.

“You were using your punching bag in the middle of the night.”

He was still talking. Quill glared at him and asked, “Are you spying on me?”

“No. Matteusz heard you.”

“Oh, so you have him spying on me?”

“No one is spying on you.” His voice was getting exasperated, but he still wouldn’t raise it so that they could have a proper argument. “Why must you be so disagreeable?”

“Why must you pry into every detail of my life?”

“Because you are my responsibility.”

She slammed her fist onto the counter and relished in the pain of the impact. A pain she—not the arn—caused. She wasn’t his responsibility—she was _his_. But of course, he would never actually say that. Responsibility sounded much more civilized and just. 

“Sorry to be such a burden, master.”

“That’s not what I…”

“Yes, it was,” she corrected before he could finish. 

“Just take the chocolate and go do whatever it is you bought all that for in your room.”

“Gladly.” Quill headed to the stairs and noticed a pair of feet retreating at the top of them. “Your human has been eavesdropping,” she announced, before brushing past the teenager with a glare.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just have this image of Quill buying all these random bits of tech and then sitting on her bed stripping them to get what she needs to recreate the advanced tech of her gun. You know, mumbling to herself about how these idiotic humans are using a filament for something utterly mundane when it could do so much more.


	5. Chapter 5

“That is why I didn’t want to talk to her.”

Charlie’s words greeted Matteusz before he even entered the kitchen. Charlie must have heard movement on the stairs and recognized it as him or, he realized, Charlie knew it could only be him on the stairs since he had just ordered Miss Quill to her bedroom. Not that the woman seemed upset over that particular order.

“I did not mean to eavesdrop,” Matteusz apologized. “I came out of shower and…”

“It’s all right. She’s loud.” He merely nodded and Charlie continued, “Everything is always an argument with her. I think she enjoys trying to get a rise out of me.”

“That surprises you?”

“It shouldn’t. The Quill are… they enjoy fighting.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

“Well, of course not, you can’t know what the Quill are like—were like—what she’s like...” he trailed off when Matteusz gave him a look. “What did you mean?”

“Miss Quill has to do whatever you say. No questions asked, right?”

“She asks plenty of questions.”

“But she has to do it, yes?” he asked and Charlie nodded somewhat reluctantly. “Arguing—making you upset—is the only way she can fight back.”

“She shouldn’t fight back. This is punishment for her crimes. It is a just punishment.”

“Maybe to you.”

“Are you taking her side?”

“I am not taking any side,” Matteusz chose his words carefully. He felt out of his depth and yet he needed to say something. “I am merely pointing out that it is sometimes good to consider things from different perspectives.”

“Her perspective would be to kill everyone," Charlie responded quickly. "You don’t know her like I do.”

“Do you actually know her?”

“I know what she did. That’s enough. There’s nothing more to say on this.”

Matteusz let the subject drop, not because he completely agreed with Charlie but because he wasn’t sure what else to say. Maybe he would try later when the argument with Miss Quill wasn’t as fresh. He gestured at the books they had been ignoring all weekend. 

“Homework then?” he asked and Charlie nodded.

A few hours later, they had managed to complete most of their work, Skype with Tanya and April (separately and then together), and make and eat supper. They were laughing at something that Ram had texted (pretending April hadn’t told him everything from group Skype he had missed), when Miss Quill appeared in the kitchen with a sheaf of papers under her arm. Their laughter faltered.

“Don’t stop on my account,” she said while filling the kettle with water. “I’m sure to laugh just as hard when it comes time to mark them,” she continued as she walked past them and their physics homework. She walked into the lounge where she deposited her papers on the chair in an unenthusiastic plop before returning to the kitchen.

Whatever Matteusz had been expecting of their next interaction with Miss Quill it wasn’t this. He had expected anger and another argument, but instead it was standard Miss Quill: annoyed, sarcastic, and in the kitchen fixing coffee.

“Are you hungry?” Charlie asked her after a moment.

Without turning around, she responded. “Do you care?”

“You should have some of the pasta.”

Miss Quill looked at the pot on the stove with disgust and then a back at Charlie with a venomous glare that made clear her anger wasn’t gone, but merely buried. “Hard pass.”

“I was only a suggestion,” Charlie muttered as looked back down at his open text book. “You don’t have to bite my head off.”

“Oh, but if I could.”

Miss Quill was opening one of the cabinets as she spoke, but when she finished her sentence, she froze mid-movement and her fingers clenched tightly on the handle. Matteusz blinked and she was moving again—cabinet open and head turned to glare at Charlie who was already engrossed in his studies. She looked at Matteusz next and her glare changed to an indiscernible look as their eyes met.

He opened his mouth to say something—ask if she was all right—but she broke eye contact and focused on grabbing a power bar from a box with more force than was necessary. She then went into the lounge and turned on the television without a word.

“What animal this time?” Charlie asked after a few minutes. Matteusz looked at him with confusion before realizing he was talking to Miss Quill.

“Tiger.”

“Is that a mammal?”

“Yes.”

Charlie looked at him and cocked his head toward the lounge. Matteusz shrugged and nodded, so both boys picked up their notebooks and carried them over to the sofa. Miss Quill did not appear bothered by them joining her. Apparently this was a regular occurrence. Even with everything that had happened in the last month—the Shadow Kin, the space dragon he didn’t see, the viney thing mimicking dead people—this was the strangest thing Matteusz had experienced. 

Five minutes ago, they had been fighting over pasta and now they were casually watching a nature documentary on tigers with physics homework in their respective laps. They weren’t talking but were at least communicating. Something would surprise Charlie (something Matteusz had taken for granted that everyone knew about tigers) and he would look at Miss Quill to see if it surprised her as well. Miss Quill generally ignored Charlie’s looks, but every now and again she would give him a little shrug in agreement. 

Matteusz began to wonder if it would be possible to play nature documentaries on a constant loop in the house so that he could preserve this uneasy calm.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I struggled a bit with the ending here because there is no real resolution, but it's one of those situations where there can't be a real resolution as long as the arn is there (or until Matteusz ups his mediation game, which has to be a gradual process). The best you can hope for is an hour or so of peace in front of a nature documentary.


End file.
